Lazy boy

Lazy boy

Friday 12 July 2002 21.02 EDT
First published on Friday 12 July 2002 21.02 EDT

Typical. You spend a month establishing a fitness routine and along comes a holiday or work trip. How do you keep it going? I mean, have you ever seen anyone use a hotel gym? Thailand sabotages any athletic activity: 95F heat, 93% humidity, packs of wild dogs and manic six-lane highways put paid to thoughts of jogging, too. So, as recommended by Optimum Fitness, I try to stretch in my hotel room. Really, I do. I even inflate my rubber Swiss exercise ball, which gets uneasy glances from the staff, convinced there's a sexual deviant in room 112.

Returning through Bangkok for 48 hours' R&R, not only have I abandoned the programme and lived for seven days on rice, eggs and 14 fry-ups in a row, but I'm covered in bites. It's not the look of a man who has spent a month working on a saner, healthier life. I need help. More precisely, I need a massage. Having lived with chronic back pain for three years, massage and osteopathy are a secret vice. They may be passive, but at least they feel as if they're doing me some good - right now, they'll also allay some of my guilt.

The Banyan Tree Hotel's spa is a serene space of mellow wood, flickering candles and single orchids. Every treatment sounds like a feasible Tantric option for Sting and Trudie: Balinese Boreh, Javanese Lulur, Hawaiian Lomi Lomi. I opt for Royal Banyan, to balance my mind, body and soul. For three hours I'm in the hands of Em, who starts by offering me incense. After a herbal steam and mint foot bath, a lemongrass and cucumber rub exfoliates my dead skin cells. An oil-free Thai acupressure massage tackles muscle tension and improves circulation - Em straddles my back and works on my shoulders. It does, indeed, boost my blood circulation, though it's not entirely appropriate for a serious massage.

The treatment ends with my body coated in heated sesame oil, and pouches filled with lemongrass, cloves and coriander moisturising my skin and warming my energy channels. I'm not sure about that last bit, but at one point I feel a stream of heat from my left foot to right shoulder. It's divine.

By the time Em collects me from my Jacuzzi, I've adopted a Zen approach to my lack of exercise: I've been hard at it for weeks, and needed a break. It's meant to be this way. I'll soon be home. Normal service will be resumed.